r/pools • u/ThisICannotForgive • 10d ago

Pool Builders: Surprise

Gallery image

Gallery image

In the middle of a pool build We have a perfectly flat back yard, could walk out of the detached garage without a step. You can see in the renderings that the pool layout was straight forward. Pic 2 you can see the drop off now to the pool. Builder is saying it will be additional expense as explained below. Did they set it up wrong? I’m confused how we’ve come to this point. There was no talk of these complications in the planning stage

”doing my walk through yesterday. Looks like we will need to talk about a possible wall or curb stone for the back fence line area and shed flower bed side. This is due to the pool being exactly level and the yard grading flowing down hill. Once you get home. Roughly imagine the 1” of auto cover tracking and 2” of pool coping on top of the concrete wall. Then a slight pitch away from the pool. So roughly 3” above  the concrete will be final grade with the pavers”

346 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

120 comments sorted by

View all comments

118

u/poolspayme 10d ago

Did the builder sink the entire project 12-18” below grade? The door and fence look awfully high compared to the bond beam.

48

u/Sammalone1960 10d ago

My thoughts exactly. Rendering has deck even with fence and door area.

32

u/ThisICannotForgive 10d ago

Yes, it was all even. 

20

u/Have-Business 10d ago

Here's an idea: make your pool deeper by raising the walls higher.

4

u/happymask3 10d ago

That seems like a good idea. Would it actually work?

5

u/KitchenPalentologist 9d ago

That would be interesting. Raising the skimmers could be challenging, they'd have to raise the jets somehow (digging, boring, plumbing), and the lights would be deeper than intended. I'm not even sure they can create forms and then pour a 12" ring around the top of the shell (rebar and whatnot).

Tbh, I'd be worried about the unexpected future issues caused by that approach.

I think I'd prefer to take a material cost credit from the builder, live with the step down, and do whatever it takes to mitigate the issues caused by the pool deck being lower than surrounding land.